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Page 11
She was a woman of great tact, of a sweet delicacy of manner, and of a
chivalrous devotedness to friendship. Her friends were carefully
chosen, and never deserted. Perhaps no woman of the century has had so
many men of mark as her friends and admirers. She had charity towards
others' failings. She gave pleasure where she could. She was elegant
and dignified in her bearing, though possessed of Irish wit withal.
She was very beautiful.
Lord Byron was induced to sing the praise of her picture here
given:--
"Were I now as I was, I had sung
What Lawrence has painted so well;
But the strain would expire on my tongue,
And the theme is too soft for my shell.
"I am ashes where once I was fire,
And the bard in my bosom is dead:
What I loved I now merely admire,
And my heart is as gray as my head.
"Let the young and the brilliant aspire
To sing what I gaze on in vain,
For sorrow has torn from my lyre
The string which was worthy the strain."
[Illustration: MARY ISABELLA DUCHESS OF RUTLAND by REYNOLDS]
HER GRACE OF RUTLAND
Rowlandson, the caricaturist, once published a cartoon entitled "Juno
Devon, All Sublime." The rival goddesses in competition with her
before that modern Paris, the Prince of Wales, being their Graces of
Gordon and Rutland. Beyond the various written records of the opposing
beauty of those aristocratic dames who dominated society in their day,
we have ample painted evidence of their loveliness. Of her Grace of
Devonshire, we have, first, the engraved renderings of "the lost
Gainsborough." There are other Gainsboroughs, too,--Georgiana as a
child, and a full-length of her standing at the edge of a lawn, her
face looking down, wearing a white dress, her right elbow on the base
of a column, a scarf in both hands, her hair piled high, but without
the hat, as in the more famous picture. There are then several by Sir
Joshua. The first, where she stands as a child beside her mother;
then, she as a mother with her own child,--a very charming profile,
and a picture that insinuates the vivacity of demeanor and the abandon
so characteristic of her.
Walpole wrote of this as "Little like and not good." Yet, as to
goodness, a modern authority has said: "It is a superb work; and, in
motive, color, and composition, it ranks as a triumph alike of nature
and art." Again, there is a whole-length showing her about to descend
some steps to a lawn, her superb shoulders and neck bare, and her hair
highly bedecked with feathers. Walpole writes of another portrait,
drawn by Lady Di Beauclerck, and engraved by Bartolozzi: "A Castilian
nymph conceived by Sappho and executed by Myron, would not have had
more grace and simplicity. The likeness is perfectly preserved, except
that the paintress has lent her own expression to the Duchess, which
you will allow is very agreeable flattering." In the Royal collection
of miniatures at Windsor, are three charmingly executed ivories of her
by Cosway. Lawrence, too, made a chalk drawing of her, which now hangs
at Chiswick House, in the room in which Charles Fox died. This is an
interesting work from being a very early effort of the after-time
President of the Academy, and showing that then he had not attained
the trick of flattering his sitters, even when they were noted
beauties. Angelica Kauffman painted her, and John Downman also made a
portrait replete with elegance and picturesqueness. In fact, the
comely Duchess pervaded the art of the period. Of her Grace of Gordon,
we have, as our ideal presentment of her, the portrait by Sir Joshua.
In it her hair is done up high, and two rows of pearls are intertwined
therein. The dress is of the Charles the First period, and shows the
sweetly modulated shoulders leading up to--
"The pillared throat, clear chiselled cheek,
High arching brows, nose purely Greek,
Set lips,--too firm for a coquette."
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